Get Email Updates

The Dispatch E-Edition

All current subscribers have full access to Digital D, which includes the E-Edition and
unlimited premium content on Dispatch.com, BuckeyeXtra.com, BlueJacketsXtra.com and
DispatchPolitics.com.
Subscribe
today!

The terrorist attack on an Algerian natural-gas plant that left dozens of hostages and militants
dead has demonstrated how a failing Algerian insurgency transformed itself into a regional threat,
partly by exploiting the turmoil unleashed by the Arab Spring revolts.

Al-Qaida’s branch in Algeria retreated into a Sahara no man’s land between Mali, Algeria and
Mauritania after it was largely defeated by the Algerian army in a 10-year war in the 1990s that
claimed 200,000 lives. There it grew rich on smuggling and hostage-taking, gained recruits and
re-emerged stronger than ever, armed with looted high-tech weapons from Libya’s 2011 civil war.

The assault Wednesday on Algeria’s In Amenas gas complex by a multinational band of Islamists
shows how long-simmering ethnic tensions in Mali, a civil war in Algeria and a revolution in Libya
have combined to create a conflict spanning the deserts and savannahs of both north and west
Africa.

Algeria’s Islamists were driven south into the desert by the military’s brutal counterinsurgency
tactics — a take-no-prisoners approach on display in the resolution of the latest hostage
crisis.

Factions of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb became rich in the lawless desert by smuggling guns,
drugs and cigarettes and by kidnapping foreigners for ransom. Soon they became involved in the
longstanding disputes of the desert Tuareg against the government in Mali, whom the tribesmen felt
ignored or abused them.

One of their prominent leaders was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who made millions smuggling and
kidnapping and went on to mastermind the attack on the In Amenas plant.

While taking up the Tuareg cause in northern Mali, these al-Qaida-allied groups decided to use
their newfound strength to settle scores against old opponents such as Algeria and the West.

“It seems that Mokhtar has tasked himself with the internationalization of the Mali conflict,”
said William Lawrence, the north African analyst for the International Crisis Group. “There’s no
question there is struggle between different groups in the Sahel and Sahara to have the upper hand
in claiming the jihad mantle in the region.”